


Ghosts

by Pyrone



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, implied potential peggy/steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrone/pseuds/Pyrone
Summary: The one where two men are haunted by each other. And one is also haunted by himself.Post Winter Soldier.





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything. And this is unbeta'd. 
> 
> The underlined portions are where both of them are sharing the same pattern of thought.

He wakes up with the name on his tongue again. The one that his breath hangs up on, one that feels the most natural coming out of his mouth. The one that makes his heart pounds against his chest when he utters it some mornings. The one that makes it race others.

 

There are mornings where it unlocks things that last enough to write. He writes things like, “The end of the line.” The point at which progress or survival cannot continue, it’s usually used in reference to trains too. Is what it means according to the web. There is a voice that whispers in his mind. But didn’t they die? What are they now?

 

_ It rips from his throat most mornings. It wraps around his throat and sighs other mornings. They make his feet feel like lead as he tries to move forward. He fights not to simply stay in bed for the day. He fights to not feel so tired. He thought he had avenged him. He thought it was over. He thought he could rest. _

 

There is a ghost that lingers on the edge of his sight, the edge of his memory. The ghost casts shadows on what he knows. He helped, didn’t he? He shaped the century with his missions. He feels bile in his throat rise as if the ghost knows how to control his stomach. To lock his throat. To make him start his day at the edge of the toilet where nothing but spittle ends up flushing. It knows how to hold onto his heart and twist it in his chest. 

 

There are whispers that linger, that you are a tool, you are a weapon, you are breaking. You have to go in for repairs. 

 

_ He had hoped to see him again. There was a love that could have happened in his past. A woman made of steel and spirit. And then there was a love that burned his soul to be without in any form. The love of a man made of sharp eyes and loyalty. He dreamed about the ways they could have lived. He dreamed of being allowed to talk about the feelings. He dreamed about the direction he’d want the feeling to go. In his heart, there were no doubts, his memory supplying the expressions seen out of the corner of his eye. That coy little comment about the uniform.  _

 

_ And then the fall.  And then the ocean. _

 

_ He dreamed he had died.  _

 

He had thought himself dead before. 

 

And he had thought the other man a ghost to take him away. To take him from the pain and burning in his blood. Then he had been told he was dead. Both of them were dead to the world. There was no one coming for him. That he was in the sea, lying at the bottom of the sea.

 

And then he wasn’t.

 

_ He knew him.  _

 

He knew him.

 

Those were the first truths that the ghost had ripped from him. Screamed them in his ears. And made him whisper in the chair. They wrapped around his chest and burned in anger after the shocks, the wipe. 

 

It was him. 

 

_ It was him. _

 

_ And he didn’t even know it. And when he falls he sees a darkness above him. _

 

The ghost moves him not into a fall, but a dive. 

 

_ This memory gives him hope. The glimmer of recognition is a kiss on his brow. Sitting in the hospital is a respite where he thinks he’ll live. He’ll live. He’ll fight and live. _

 

His survival is paramount. And of course, they do. Both of them do. Because he has to survive in order to heal. He has to organize this chaos in his head. He has to face these ghosts on neutral ground. He will beat them. He will survive this. Not unscathed, but what else is new? He is a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. He just hopes none of them are vital.

 

The name is on his breath this morning, and he knows the other is alive. Not a ghost, not anymore. He is living breathing, and somehow it makes it easier to do the same. 


End file.
